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The onslaught reached force in the third quarter, when — for the first time — this series
felt like the mismatch that most experts had predicted. The Pacers did jump out on the
Magic early as well in game two last night, busing out the gates to quickly build a 20-10
lead, but like in Game One, that early scoring flurry was soon erased, and Indiana once
again looked like a team that was going to allow Orlando to dictate the tempo.

Way more troubling than that initial recovery, however, was the fact that their opponent,
led by the vertically challenged Glen Davis, was punishing the Pacers front court. It
became Big Baby’s game; Indiana was just along for the ride.

In the NBA, much is made about energy levels, aggressiveness and imposing physicality.
Sometimes this is just cliched rubbish spun by hack writers who spent more of the game
feverishly writing a post-game report pre-buzzer than truly paying attention. After all, it
is really easy to just throw out overarching generalities (“TMac was never great; he
couldn’t make it to the second round”) and be accurate without being correct.

But in this case, it’s the only way to explain what actually happened. The Magic, in the
second quarter, wanted it more.

After falling down early, the Magic simply decided to be tougher than the Pacers. It led
to them being able to do whatever they wanted. Jameer Nelson dribbled around freely,
Davis was the largest presence on the court. Even NBA nobodies Chris Duhon and Earl
Clark were making Indiana’s look like the ones who are fringe pros at best. And it
wasn’t even so much that Orlando was running any great sets or converting buckets
at an impressive rate. But they were able to get enough second-chance points to
supersede the fact that the offensive execution was subpar. It was clear why: the
Pacers were intimidated and became indecisive, passive and reactionary. Every Pacer
fan watching must have been thinking the same thing: “Indiana isn’t making the
second round.” It was that one-sided from an aggression standpoint.

By now you’ve heard. The third quarter of last night’s game between the Pacers and
Magic seems to have been the series turning point for Indiana. Down a bucket at the
half, the Pacers came out in the third and cold-cocked the Magic to the tune of a 30-13
quarter that provided the final margin of victory.

The question going forward is exactly what to make of that run. Was it an outlier or a
harbinger? Was it a case of regression - the Pacers just starting to perform how we
figured they always would - or was it a case of the Pacers playing exceptionally?

To my eye, there were four reasons the Pacers came alive in the third: 1.) they
mauled the Magic on the glass, 2.) they converted at the line, 3.) they snuffed out
most of Orlando’s initial actions on pick-and-rolls, and 4.) George Hill began once
more to resemble a professional basketball player. Of these, we’ll ignore Hill’s
resurfacing, for the simple reason that I have no idea whether he will again net 16
points on 8 shots, as he had at the end of last night’s third quarter.

I’ll focus first on the fouls and the rebounding, because they’re really two sides of
the same coin. I hate to point this out, but the Pacers only shot 28 free throws last
night, which is a totally reasonable figure for a team playing with the sort of
interior advantage the Pacers have. Even though, at times, during the third quarter
it seemed there was a whistle on every play, the Magic really can’t argue with a
28-19 free throw disparity in favor of Indiana given the stylistic and personnel
differences. The rebounding? Stay with me, because this is where things get grim.

Look, the Pacers are going to outrebound the Magic. Even in Game 1, Indiana was
+5 on the boards. The Pacers are a strong rebounding outfit no matter how you
slice it — a top-five team in raw per-game rebounding and in offensive rebound
percentage. However, they simply bludgeoned Orlando on the offensive glass last
night, corralling 37.5 percent of their own misses. While this seems like a shocking
figure, nearly 8 percentage points above Indiana’s season average, when you
consider the fact that Indiana’s offensive rebound percentage in the Magic’s Game
1 win was 30.6 percent, it’s hard to come to the conclusion the Magic will remedy
this situation...CONTINUE READING AT MAGIC BASKETBALL

Play with the same focus and intensity that we showed in Game 2's 3rd quarter and the rest will take care of itself.

Personally though the biggest boon will be Frank never going to the platoon substitutions in the first place, our starters always jump out to an early lead, and we switch out 3 or 4 guys at once and kill all of our momentum. Perhaps this time around we can dominate from start to finish with a substitution pattern that allows us to maintain momentum better.

Or Danny Granger could play remotely close to the level he played Post ASB and nothing else will likely matter for the purposes of winning this series. In alot of ways the captain is the Belleweather, we look like an elite team when he scores the ball efficiently and at a high rate.

I really hope that Vogel at least dresses Fesenko. I would at least like to know that the option is there to go to him if we start getting pushed around the paint.

Yes. Oh please, this.

I think that Frank has realized the problems in our second unit. Bad shooting will fix itself but our back up bigs will not suddenly get taller and longer than Clark. At least, dress Fesenko and consider him as an option.

That said, just pound it inside and let's hope that we're able to pull this off.

I don't think that I'll post as many emotes in this thread as for some reason the new software does not react when I'm trying to put emotes in my posts and frankly I don't want to write e all night long just so it shows it (since I cannot click on it).

I think that Frank has realized the problems in our second unit. Bad shooting will fix itself but our back up bigs will not suddenly get taller and longer than Clark. At least, dress Fesenko and consider him as an option.

That said, just pound it inside and let's hope that we're able to pull this off.

I don't think that I'll post as many emotes in this thread as for some reason the new software does not react when I'm trying to put emotes in my posts and frankly I don't want to write e all night long just so it shows it (since I cannot click on it).

But that's irrelevant. Take the W and I'll be happy.

Leggooooooooooooo!!!

If Hansbrough or Amundson isn't doing the job inside the paint....then at least put in Pendegraph to see if it makes any difference. We have a big frontcourt and don't understand why we don't use some of it.